Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The 2008 race for the highest job in the land, President of the United States, is heating up and getting interesting. The economy slid further on Monday into a dubious tailspin, turning the tide slightly in Sen. Obama's favor, but alas, the attack ammunition is continuing to be fired from both candidate's sides as the country holds its breath in anticipation that the landscape of American finance will return to normal.The New York Times wrote about the most recent financial crisis to level Wall Street occurring on Monday, which held the possibility of American International Group, the nation's biggest insurance company, collapsing and the previously unthinkable, now a reality, bankruptcy of securities firm Lehman Brothers.In reaction to this crisis, the candidates have both responded this week by focusing more narrowly on the economy and offering a deluge of shots against each other's campaigns at the same time. On Tuesday, McCain changed his long held stance on regulation, and referring to stricter rules and oversights for financial companies he said in the Washington Post that "Government has a clear responsibility to act in defense of the public interest, and that's exactly what I intend to do." Sen. Obama was in Colorado this week and reiterated his economic proposals, as well as scolded McCain for a comment he had made on Monday. The comment was that the economy is fundamentally sound. Sen. Obama said, "How can John McCain fix our economy if he doesn't understand it's broken?" McCain said this week in an ad that Obama's solution to the economic trouble is only "talk and taxes."I hope that we as Americans can start to get the actual hard policies from these two candidates instead of a barrage of artillery from the culture wars.